About Todd Norian

I just completed Part Two of the Four-Part Ashaya Yoga 200-Hour Teacher Training in St. Michaels, MD. I was blown away by the courageous transformation of the students and the love of the group. I taught a session on holiday cheer and good will, emphasizing that good will comes from an appreciation of life. It’s an inside job – it starts with you being good to yourself.

One of my assistants at the training, Marianna, offered me a ride to the airport since our flights departed at the same time. However, as we were running a bit late, she had to drop off her car at the rental car return which meant that we would have to take a bus to the terminal. I was a bit concerned about this because I was traveling with four heavy bags!

When I got to the door of the bus and tried to load up my four bags, an officer in full military uniform saw my struggle. He was a big guy and very strong. With a smile ear to ear, he said, “Let me get that for you.” He picked up both bags at the same time as if they had feathers in them and loaded them up on the rack. I was as impressed as I was grateful. He was in the seat right next to the luggage rack and there was an empty seat next to his. He slid over one seat and invited me to sit down next to him.

In no time, we struck up a conversation. I thanked him for his help and jokingly said, “You’re really strong but I’ve got you beat on flexibility. I’m a yoga teacher.” He laughed and said, “That’s […]

Greetings! I hope your Thanksgiving holiday was enjoyable and grace-filled. I had a wonderful time catching up with old friends and had a birthday on November 25thand I celebrated joyously. I’m so grateful for community and authentic connections! Very nourishing.

I hear this often, “I do my practices every day, but I’m still stressed out.” Life moves fast and it’s not slowing down. It’s speeding up. How then can we maintain our balance? What happens when yoga is not enough?

World-renowned scholar Douglas Brooks says, “Crisis is the normal state of affairs. Embrace the idea. We try to make order in a world of entropy.”What is entropy? It’s the state of breakdown and dissolution. Things tend to gather dust and decompose when left alone for a while. Don’t vacuum and dust bunnies magically appear. When you come back from vacation, just look inside your fridge. The blue/green/purple/black mold growing on everything? That’s entropy! It’s a natural phenomenon.

Order is just one aspect of reality. Another aspect is stochasticity– a fancy word that means randomly determined. Here’s an example of how science uses the word – “Environmental stochasticity refers to unpredictable spatiotemporal fluctuation in environmental conditions.” Basically, it’s the inability to precisely predict the future state of something based on constantly changing variables. Possible things can’t really be predicted, but they can be predicted within parameters. Where will the next wave hit the shore? You can’t tell for sure, but tides do go in and out. Chaos is something you can’t anticipate. You can only embrace.

Is yoga trying to tell us there’s an alternate reality of bliss somewhere out there? No. Yoga is trying to help us embrace chaos. Not solve it but be in it. Ugh! Who wants that?

Emotional pain and hurt often stems from the rejection of our love. It takes a lot of inner strength to give and receive love. You have to soften and open to a bigger energy. You need to let your guard down and be willing to be vulnerable and share your heart with someone. There’s a high risk in that. “If I open myself, will my love be received or rejected?”

When your love is not received, you can feel rejected and hurt. When that happens to me, my internal commentary goes something like this, “My love is not good enough. I’m not good enough.” This negative self-talk comes from patterns of hurt, shame, and ridicule from my childhood. It also comes partially from never being taught how to receive feedback without collapsing into feeling like a failure.

Positive Psychology has a slogan,“Learn to fail or fail to learn.”I love this because it points to the fact that in order to receive feedback, even when it’s given with love, you need to be ready for it. You need to be able to love yourself in the midst of the feedback. No matter how negative the feedback is, we all need to learn how to receive it without collapsing, without giving up on ourselves, and without doubting or abandoning ourselves. This is no small task and can take a lifetime to develop.

These insights and more flooded in as I flew out to Grand Rapids last month for my 40th high school reunion. This was the first reunion I had attended. In the weeks prior, I felt a kind of low-grade anxiety. Even though I was looking forward to reconnecting with friends, my smaller self was freaking out. […]

Health is crucial for a positive experience of life. It’s amazing how when I don’t feel well or I’m in physical pain, my whole outlook on life goes down the tubes. I’ve had a slight headache on and off for the last few days. I wouldn’t say I’ve been depressed. But my world view for the last few days has been dim at best. Just today my headache lifted, and my hip felt stronger. I had a great swim at practice tonight and all of a sudden, I was happy again. The Tantric teaching here is that the nature of the human heart is freedom. And the nature of freedom is joy. Whenever we experience a release from pain and suffering, there is joy. When you stop hurting, something else arises. That something else is joy. It’s just how it is. This movement from suffering to joy is profound and fills me with awe and wonder each time. It’s like I forget that life can be fun when I’m not feeling well. Then I feel better physically, and suddenly I have the strength to deal with my life. I have energy to post a positive perspective in my mind. Ahhhhhh, the pulsation. Until next time! Sweet dreams.

For those who may not have heard, I had a total hip replacement in January of this year. Although the healing is going well, I still have weakness and pain during certain movements like lunge pose with my right leg forward. During a recent physical therapy session, I was working on a lunge exercise while holding a ten pound weight in my hands. It was a very challenging exercise for me and I must have been making a strained face, pursing my lips, and slouching forward with my shoulders when I heard my PT say, “Lift your torso and upright yourself, Todd.” There was something about the way the phrase, “Upright yourself, Todd” sounded that struck a chord deep in my heart. When I lifted my chest and “uprighted” myself, the pain in my hip went away! With shoulders back and my abdominal core engaged, the strength in my hip returned. The pain dissolved and I felt free again.

Since my surgery, the healing process has taken place in stages. At first, everything seemed to heal quickly and within six weeks I was back to most of my normal daily activities, including biking, swimming, and teaching yoga. Then the healing process seemed to slow down and for the last several months it’s been painstakingly slow. Although I’m 90% healed, the last 10% has been an uphill battle. My surgeon told me that because of the nuanced demands of yoga that I’ve put on my hip, the healing is taking longer than some. Total healing can sometimes take one to two years.

Slowing down is not one of my strengths. I have a lot of enthusiasm for what I do. But after this PT session, I had the […]